Does Morality Inhibit Freedom?

Michie

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St. Thomas Aquinas gave primacy to the natural reason as formative in our free choices—the use of reason ordered to truth, and the will ordered to the good, uniting to make a choice.


“Jesus didn’t come to give us a bunch of rules.” Perhaps you have heard this kind of complaint. Some people seem to think that expressing a clearly defined morality is locking them up in some kind of invisible prison that is constricting their freedom. They may equate moral standards with self-righteous hypocrisy. They don’t want to be “moral machines” following a “hard cold legalism.”

Where does this view of Christian morality come from? Is it really true that one has to choose between moral standards and personal freedom? Do we need to choose between either obeying rules imposed on us from the outside or going with the deepest longings of our own heart? Is there actually a dichotomy between moral righteousness and the desires.


Continued- Does Morality Inhibit Freedom?